


a thousand eyes are watching

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Relationships, F/M, One-Sided Relationship, Season/Series 02, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 18:23:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: With Skye too injured for missions, Grant's given the opportunity of a lifetime. It might be just what he needs to get out of this cell.





	a thousand eyes are watching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shineyma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/gifts).



> A birthday gift for the bestest Amy ever. <3 I hope she likes it because it only hits like one of her requests. Whoops.
> 
> Title comes from Hey Violet's "where have you been (all my night)"
> 
> There's a spoilery content warning in the end tags if you're worried about that.

Footsteps sound on the stairs, alerting Grant that he’s not alone. Another day, another round of interrogation. Not that it can really be called that. Even when Coulson tried, it was mostly him sitting out there, giving Grant his most disappointed dad face. Not a whole lot of mind games and torture to be found in SHIELD without Hydra.

But Grant’s still got plenty of mind games to play, so he lets himself smile at the thought of Skye coming down just to see little old him and sits up on the edge of the bed while he waits for the barrier to turn transparent so he can see her.

When it does, he’s on his feet and across the cell in a heartbeat. “What happened?” he demands.

She tries to hide it, but she cringes back just a little in the chair at his fast approach. He regrets that, regrets the things he’s done to make her fear him even this many months later, but it really can’t be helped now, and he’s a little more worried about the sling cradling her right arm.

She lifts her chin. Proud. Strong. That’s his girl. “Hydra,” she says, her voice dripping with hate and accusation.

He bites down a sharp _kinda figured_ and instead asks a gentle, “How? Are you okay?”

She shifts, relaxing a little in the seat. “I’m fine. Nothing a few analgesics and a couple weeks in a sling can’t cure. Which is why I’m here.” She taps her fingers against the tablet in her lap but nothing happens that he can see. “Since I can’t work, I might as well do something productive with my time.”

A grin pulls at his cheeks. He fights to take the edge off it; he knows he’s gotta look pretty wild after so many months down here and if she’s saying what he thinks she is, he doesn’t wanna scare her off. “Spend it with me, you mean?”

The glare she gives him has gotta come from too many hours training with May; Skye never had that much ice queen in her. “Spend it getting _answers_ from you. And since you like to waste time talking about yourself instead of Hydra, this seemed like a good time to make us both happy.” She makes herself comfortable. “I’ll listen to as many self-pitying stories as you want, you just have to agree to answer my questions.”

Grant steps back until his calves hit the edge of his bed, then he sits to better consider her. The way she’s talking … she planned this, probably practiced what she’d say to him a few times too. Which means this is sincere, not something she’s doing spur of the moment while May and Coulson are too distracted with whatever else is going on to stop her. This is a for real offer of (mostly) unlimited access to Skye’s time after _months_ of fighting for a few seconds. “You’re serious? I get you-”

“All day,” she says. “For as many days as it takes this to heal.” She touches her shoulder, but it’s a light touch, she barely brushes her jacket. Even with those pain meds it must be hurting like a bitch. “Provided you answer my questions.”

He opens his arms. “What do you want to know?”

 

 

He tells her about Hydra’s Gifteds program—what they did at locations like the Fridge that were largely under SHIELD control and what they did at their own facilities—and then answers all her questions about those off-the-books sites that wouldn’t have been in SHIELD’s file dump. A lot of the old heads were paranoid – for good reason it turns out. And once he’s done with that he calls it a day.

“You must be tired,” he says. Just like he expected, it startles her. He smiles. “I’m sure Simmons is on you about taking care of yourself, I’d hate to get in her way.”

Skye’s eyes narrow in suspicion. That’s okay. She can suspect him all she likes, what matters is that she hears him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” He makes it a question, makes sure she knows that even though their deal isn’t done—he never did anything but answer her questions, never said a word that was anything less than helpful to the cause—if she wants to call it quits right here, he won’t call foul.

She nods stiffly and taps the tablet, closing him off again. He lays back on the mattress and smiles to himself. Things are looking up.

 

 

The next day she has a whole list of questions, some Coulson tried asking him back in the early days before he gave up, some that are brand new, but all are obviously from the man in charge. He answers them all and then he tells her about them. He talks about how he never thought he was capable of love until she wormed her way under his skin. He’s not surprised that the confession has her squirming in her seat, but the look on her face…

Every time she’s come down here she’s been cold and distant, infuriatingly superior because _she_ stayed loyal to SHIELD—one of these days he’s gonna remind her that she was Rising Tide—when he was a dirty traitor. No matter what he says about her or her family she always meets it with a sneer and sarcasm. But now? Those drugs must really be fucking her up because he can see it getting to her, see how much she still cares about him. He’s breaking her heart telling her how much he loved her, which means her heart is still his to break.

“Is this really where you want to go?” she asks, cutting into his reminiscing about the weeks she spent recovering.

“I’m only trying to tell you how much I care about you,” he says.

She rolls her eyes and cups her hand around her bad elbow. “And yet you continued to work with Garrett.”

He stands, not to come nearer because that’s sure to scare her off. He paces, lets the anger and frustration make his movements a little more erratic than he likes them to be. “I didn’t know he was gonna do that. I had no idea what any of his plans were while I was on the team.”

“But you could have stopped him. At any point you could have told us you knew who the Clairvoyant was. When he had Amador or Mike or _Coulson_.”

He shakes his head. “I couldn’t have saved Coulson. John had properties all over the world, there was no way I could’ve guessed which one he was in.”

“So it was better to stay silent? Let him be tortured?”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything!”

Her lips thin and her eyes go a little white around the edges. And no wonder when he’s yelling like a lunatic.

Maybe getting unhindered access to her wasn’t such a great deal. He’s not used to being around people, he’s out of practice controlling himself for more than a few minutes at a time.

He slumps his shoulders, drops back to the wall and slides down to the floor, giving her space. At least she’s still here instead of running scared. Which he wouldn’t blame her for, honestly.

“What happened?” he asks again and gestures to his shoulder.

“I told you. Hydra-”

“Yeah. But _what happened_?”

She uncrosses her legs, holds the tablet over her knees in a stiff way that makes him think less of the Skye he knows and more of that other one, the one who was bullied into behaving in some orphanage. “I was … gathering intel. In a Hydra facility.”

“Shit,” he breathes.

“My cover was blown.” She shrugs the good shoulder. “Simple as that.”

God, she’s lucky to be alive. Call it hypocritical, but Hydra doesn’t take well to spies in their midst. (But then neither did SHIELD. That’s one thing they have in common.)

He drags his eyes over her, searching not for the first time for other signs of injury, but she’s annoyingly immobile. She fidgets in her seat but never stands, never walks around. If she didn’t move her legs he could imagine all sorts of horrible things had happened to her. “Gunshot?” he asks when he can’t find any bruises to indicate a scuffle.

She nods once. It must’ve been terrifying for her after what happened last spring. He doesn’t fake any of the emotion in his voice when he says, “I’m sorry. I wish I’d been there to back you up. If things had gone differently after the uprising-” He bites off, leaves it to her imagination to tell her how much better off she and the whole team would be if he weren’t in here. “It should’ve been me going in there.”

“Yes,” she agrees more quickly than he’d like, “it should have been you.”

There’s enough venom in her voice he wonders if she’s thinking it should’ve been him who was _shot_. It’s time for a lighter topic of conversation. “I know how much an injury like that can hurt.” He smiles. “Did Simmons spend the whole time she dug the bullet out cursing in British?” After the trade for Ace Peterson went south, Simmons had to do the same to him on a cold rooftop with only a flashlight to see by. He once spent three months undercover in a London slum, and she said words that night that even he’d never heard. It was kinda hilarious.

Skye’s face shutters. “No,” she says coldly. “She didn’t.”

His heart thumps hollowly in his chest. There’s something wrong. He’s missing something here, something big.

“I think you were right yesterday,” she says, “I shouldn’t overexert myself. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”

“Skye-” But the barrier’s already closed off. He could call out to her, demand answers, but he forces himself to respect her choice and listens to the sound of her footsteps up the stairs.

 

 

“Where’s Simmons?” he asks before she can start in on her questions the next day. She seems stunned so he barrels on. “I’ve seen Coulson and May and Trip. And Fitz came down a couple weeks ago, but he was …” Mad. Furious. Grant’s never seen Fitz like that but he _has_ seen that level of wrath before. He shakes off the memories of his childhood. “He looked bad. Real bad. And I gotta wonder … is Simmons okay?”

She bites her lip and looks away at the dull grey walls before meeting his eyes again. “Why do you care?”

“Because she’s my friend. Because if she’s been hurt or-”

“You dropped her out of a plane.” Her voice is raw enough to steal his away. “She’s afraid of heights and you _knew_ that, you were there, and you promised-” She looks away again. “You dropped her out of a plane. Why should I believe you care about her at all?”

He laces his fingers between his knees. This didn’t work with Fitz, but maybe on Skye he’ll have better luck. “I dropped them out of the Bus to protect them. Fitz nearly killed John, and he wanted blood. We were still near the coast – I thought they’d be able to get out, reach the surface.” And he thought they had. Fitz is a little messed up, sure, but Coulson said-

Skye laughs. It’s hard and mean and cuts right through him. “Fitz was in a coma for _nine days_.”

His chest constricts. That’s still not a mention of Simmons. “But he’s alive.”

She pushes up from her chair and stalks towards the stairs. Something about the way she moves strikes him as wrong and he wonders again if there’s more to her injury than he can see.

“Wait-” he calls.

She fists her hand around the railing that runs along the wall. “We still have a deal,” she says stiffly. “I’ll expect you to answer my questions tomorrow.”

She practically runs away, leaving him alone with the childish thought that she never answered his.

 

 

He’s in the middle of his workout the next morning when it hits him. It comes to him so suddenly that he’s just gotta stop and sit at the foot of his bed while his brain goes over the last few days in this new light. And damned if it doesn’t make sense.

But it doesn’t at the same time. There is _no way_ \- But then she did say…

Fuck. This’d be a lot easier if he wasn’t locked up behind an impenetrable barrier.

He mulls the problem over while he eats the breakfast Trip delivers and then decides. It’s not gonna be a fun play but it’ll get him answers. And maybe even a little bit of leverage. Always nice to have.

When she shows up and asks him questions like nothing happened, he answers them.

When she’s done, he tells her he never should’ve pushed her the day before, then he thanks her for walking away. “That’s not what we did in my family,” he says wryly, and she listens while he sits on the cold floor and tells her about his childhood.

And all the while he studies her, watches her, and grows more and more certain that he’s right.

It goes the same the next day and the next. He talks about meeting John, how it gave him something to live for. He pours his damn heart out and every day grows a little colder, a little more solemn.

She doesn’t snap at him or yell or interrupt to deny him his right to his own trauma. She listens and watches and he can see her heart in her eyes, pitying him while he sinks deeper into himself. She may not be Skye, but he’s still got her.

 

 

“What’s Hydra’s policy on traitors?” she asks around lunchtime one day. It’s not a Coulson question, he can see that much from the way she ducks her head after it’s out. “Obviously it’s negative. But I mean what do they do with the agent when they’re discovered?”

“Wondering if you got off easy?” he asks, nodding to her shoulder.

It’s looking better. She’s still got the sling but she’s a lot looser the way she sits and moves. She actually shrugs with that side instead of just her left.

“Well, you did.” He drags himself around to sit facing her, legs splayed out on the floor. He can feel heat from the barrier on his toes, see a faint halo around his feet like they’re holy. “Depending on how much they value the agent and how much intel the agent might have on whoever they’re working for, it can be anything from a quick bullet in the head to a slow, painful death. We used to…” He trails off, lost in memories of starkly lit rooms and people being taken apart piece by piece.

SHIELD had a six day policy. According to Agent Clayborne at the Academy, if God made the Earth in six days that should be enough to get a man to talk. If not, you let him rest. Hydra’s not nearly so merciful.

“What about brainwashing?” she asks, her nose scrunching up in confusion.

“That means you’re valuable. That’s Hydra’s idea of mercy. You get to live. You’re happy.” He shrugs. “There are worse things. And we know how to do them.”

His self-flagellating tone doesn’t stop her from asking him about the different levels of response. She squirms and looks sick but she’s the one pressing for more information. He wonders if this is really her own curiosity driving her to ask what might’ve been or if maybe someone else wasn’t so lucky when she escaped.

When she’s finally satisfied (if that’s the right word when she’s sure to have nightmares for weeks after this) he says, “You’re looking better.”

She looks at her shoulder, rolls it experimentally. “Yes. I’m feeling better.”

“So you’ll be back to work soon.” He doesn’t have to fake his disappointment.

She opens and closes her mouth, looking stricken. At least he’s not the only one. “Yes. I will,” she says determinedly. “I should actually go. I have ex- an extraction to oversee.”

“Right.”

She reaches for the tablet, only to pause and meet his eyes. She doesn’t want to leave him.

He holds his breath, waiting to see. He can’t help hoping she won’t, that she’ll stay just a little longer, even though it’ll ruin everything.

“Goodbye,” she says with just enough finality he’s gotta fight not to smile. He couldn’t have planned it better.

 

 

The next morning is hell. He barely slept all night, spent most of it worming his fingers into the tight stitching on his mattress and digging out the treasure he left there ages ago, before they started taking away all his toys. The rest he spent waiting for just the right time to press the worn, jagged edge of what used to be a spoon into the soft flesh of his wrist. Then he waits, lets the blood pool in his sheets and doesn’t move a muscle.

Finally, after ten rounds of _I did it too soon_ vs _shut up and wait_ , the door opens. Familiar footsteps on the stairs. She settles in the chair. The barrier crackles a little when it goes transparent. And-

“Ward?” She sounds small, frightened. His face is down in the pillow but he can easily enough imagine her leaning forward to see him better. “Wa-” She hits something. The tablet, probably, since the next thing she says is, “Trip! Code red in Vault D! He’s done it again.”

The ever-present buzz of the barrier drops out and a second later her hands are on him, rolling him over so she can see-

“No no no no,” she says. “What did you do?”

She grabs at his hands, searching through the blood for the wound. She wrenches the scrap of metal from his limp fingers and hurls it behind her.

“Ward!”

He hisses in pain when her hand wraps tight around his wrist. The cut is small, just big enough to scare her, she can hold it shut herself until help gets here.

“Ward, look at me,” she demands. She’s rough with him, her fingers curling tight in his hair. Tears spring to his eyes, but that might be from how damn good it feels to be touched again. “Come on!”

He reaches up blindly with his uninjured hand, finds her face, her neck, digs his hand into her hair and pulls her down. She tastes like honey and that bitter tea that used to stink up the Bus’s kitchen.

“Jemma,” he sighs. His bloody fingers stick in her hair while he smiles up at the stark lights overhead. Trip’s coming, coming to save him, but he doesn’t care. He’s got what he wanted. “I knew it was you.”

 

 

Skye’s back. The real Skye this time. No photostatic veil. No missing two inches off the top of her. He’s kinda ashamed, in retrospect, how completely Jemma fooled him.

“Tell her I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to scare her. I won’t do it again.”

“Really?” Skye asks, her voice dripping acidic sweetness. “Because I really don’t think she’d care if you did.”

Bullshit. Jemma was terrified, scared enough to come into his cell without backup while he was still conscious. He’d love to know whether it was that or the kiss he laid on her that got him Skye back. Not that she was the goal. No, that’s changed pretty much entirely.

“Can I see her?” he asks, pitching his voice low and hurt. “Just so I can tell her myself-”

Skye’s hands are so tight around the back of the chair her fingers are white. “Not a chance. In. Hell.”

That’s okay. Grant knows Jemma’s watching. She’s too much of a mother hen not to after what happened the other day. She may not be down here, but she’ll be keeping an eye on him until the stitches come out, if not longer.

 

 

He sees her again before that.

Five days after Skye tells him he’s never gonna see Jemma again, the whole cell shakes and dust drifts gently down from the ceiling. The outer section fills with blue gas he recognizes from that op in Italy.

He waits.

He paces.

He works out.

He even sleeps when his dinner hour comes and goes with no sign of anyone.

He tries not to think about what’ll happen to him if no one ever comes again.

The next morning a man he doesn’t know brings him breakfast and no answers to his questions. The look on his scarred face is so bitter Grant considers not eating at all for fear of poison. It’d be easier to just kill him outright, but whoever’s up there might enjoy the idea of watching a Hydra traitor rot from the inside out.

He eats a little, waits, and eats some more when hours pass with no sign of sickness. At that pace the tray’s still half-full late the next day when the base shakes again.

And again.

And again.

He’s just considering yelling futilely for answers when the door swings open. Jemma.

The real Jemma. No sling, no photostatic veil hiding her identity. Just a bloody gash on her forehead and terror on her face.

She races down the steps, hits the controls on her way past. The heavy door swings shut with a clang, the barrier drops, and then she’s in his arms.

“Are you all right?” he asks, pushing her hair back from her scalp so he can better see. Blood’s clinging to her neck and shirt, leaving her looking like the wholesome lead of a slasher flick.

“It looks worse than it is,” she says breathlessly.

“Who’s attacking? Is Coulson trying to take back the base?” He doesn’t know for sure what’s happened up there the last few days, but he knows Coulson. Even after everything—the betrayal, the lies, the games—he was determined to keep Grant alive. Whoever’s in charge now doesn’t give a shit about him.

She blinks, nonplussed for a moment before she shakes it off. And that’s a bad idea. He’s gotta catch her to keep her from hitting the ground.

Absurdly, a smile tugs at her lips. “No. No, it’s Hydra.”

His hands spasm on her shoulders. She’s so warm, especially since he feels damn cold right now. “What?” he breathes.

She leans into his touch – more than she should, honestly. He considers moving her to the bed so he can wrap that head wound but he’d have to let her go to get his scrub top off.

“We were invaded two days ago,” she says, then stops, breathless, and that tears it. He sits her down and starts ripping at his shirt. “By another SHIELD. They lied to us, pretended to be our friends so they could betray us.”

Doesn’t that sound familiar. She meets his eyes while he ties off the makeshift bandage. It could just be the blood loss and concussion, but she looks more doe-eyed than usual.

“They were going to kill you.” Her fingers curl on his thigh. Since she’s initiating, he lets his hands explore her on pretense of looking for other injuries. If she even notices, she doesn’t seem to mind. “And the others have all fled so…”

“So you figured why not let Hydra do something good for once,” he surmises. It’s a crazy plan, but that seems to be her MO lately. Bringing Hydra down on the base, pretending to be Skye to get him to talk, going undercover in Hydra. “I’m guessing you had an escape plan?”

She nods, then winces. Her forehead falls to his shoulder. “I was wiping the files. It took longer than I thought and by the time I was done, there was no way out.”

“So you came to me.”

Her fingers brush his chest. “I didn’t want them to hurt you before you were rescued. I brought-” She tries to twist, but nearly unseats herself in the process.

He reaches around her, finding the gun hidden in the back of her jeans. Smart.

She whimpers when he brushes the bloody bandage. “Did they do this too?”

She nods.

Bastards. He almost hopes they come for him now so he can pay them back.

He runs his hand along her spine, trying to think. They’re still in danger, but he’s nearly out of the woods. Her, on the other hand…

“How long were you in Hydra?” he asks. She doesn’t respond. He’s gotta pinch her side and push her up to get her paying attention. “How long, Jemma?”

“Sic- six months. Closer to seven.”

Damn. That is … he was impressed when she was just pretending to be Skye, but pretending to be a loyal Hydra agent for that long? He’s not gonna lie, he is more than a little turned on right now.

“Why did you pull out?”

“Raina,” she says with a cute little frown. “She sent everyone a photo. Me with a flex screen.”

“And you had to run?”

Her nod turns into a sleepy bob. He gathers her into his side. “So you were never caught? Did you ever confess to being SHIELD?”

“Yes. No.” She moans. If she weren’t obviously in pain, he’d laugh at how much trouble she’s having getting her brain to work. “Never caught. Never confessed.”

“Not even when you exposed the base?”

She nuzzles deeper into his chest and he’s gonna take that as a no. He kisses the top of her head.

“Don’t you worry, baby. You’re gonna be just fine.”

 

 

Grant cuts off the sound before he steps into the room. The sun’s gone down outside and no one’s bothered to turn any lights on so it’s only the light from the TV illuminating everything in shades of grey. He ignores that in favor of the woman sitting in the armchair.

“Hey, baby,” he says, ducking down to kiss the purpling bruise on her cheek.

He thought he was done, but turns out he’s gonna have to head back downstairs once he’s finished here. A few more SHIELD agents are gonna have to die now he’s seen how swollen it’s gotten.

He brushes her hair back away from her face. Her eyes are fixed on the screen in front of her. He can see the patterns reflected in her eyes, hear the beat of the heavy pulse meant to drown out her thoughts echoed in her breathing even so many seconds after it’s been muted. She doesn’t say a word.

There’s a teacup in her lap, cradled between her fingers. He picks it up and heads for the kitchen, hitting the TV’s power along the way. The cup’s nearly empty but he rinses it thoroughly anyway, washing away the last of whatever cocktail the techs have cooked up to dampen fight instincts.

When he comes back and switches on the light, she jumps like he woke her up.

“Ward! I didn’t hear you come in.”

He kneels next to her again, taking her hands, warming them up in his. “I’ve told you,” he says gently, “call me Grant.”

“Grant,” she repeats like it’s a fact she’s just been told is gonna be on a test. “Grant. Yes. Happy to comply.”

Her smile holds for all of three seconds before fading into confusion and concern.

He squeezes her fingers and reaches up to cup her good cheek in his hand. “We talked about this, remember? You’re valuable. To me.”

To Hydra too—Whitehall was practically giddy when Grant handed him Jemma and only barely disappointed when he told him SHIELD had threatened his life to make her betray Hydra. But she _did_ betray them and they can’t risk her doing it again. So they’re making a few tweaks, nothing serious, just a little conditioning to ensure she doesn’t step out of line in the future. They’re not stripping her of her free will, just scraping away a few of her morals. She’s still Jemma.

And because she’s still herself, her smile returns. Blissful. Unconcerned. Her fingers brush his cheek and her breath falls over his face.

He kisses her, slow and gentle, and lifts her up out of the chair while she’s lost in him. She doesn’t even seem to realize he’s put her to bed until he’s walking away.

“Wa- Grant,” she calls plaintively.

“Soon,” he promises. “When you’re better.” And when he can look at her without wanting to burn SHIELD to the ground. He’ll have to kill a few more agents before that happens though. “Go to sleep. I’ll be back before you wake up.”

Like a good Hydra agent, she does as she’s told.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning for fake attempted suicide. Grant obviously doesn't mean to kill himself but just as obviously wants everyone else to think he does.


End file.
